The market for fresh pineapple in Europe is increasing; European consumers demand
ready-to-eat products with a sweet taste and golden colour. The import of fresh pineapples
to the Netherlands from predominantly Ghana, Costa Rica, Ivory Coast and South Africa
amounts to about 35 tons on a yearly basis, although almost 75% of that is redistributed
to mainly Germany and Russia. Pineapples intended for shipping are harvested when
green, while those intended for immediate eating are harvested in the semi-ripe state and
those intended for canning in the ripe state. Only sound fruit may be approved for
transport; pineapples require particular temperature, humidity/moisture and ventilation
conditions. Intact pineapples can be kept for a several weeks, whereas cut pineapple has a
much more restricted shelf life. Based on discussions with two product experts (that have
performed studies on the keepability of cut pineapples under specific laboratory
conditions, cf. Tijskens 2004) and participating chain partners, a generic quality decay
model was developed in order to estimate the quality decay of cut pineapple (see Figure 4).
This model uses the yeast concentration as limiting quality attribute, starting after cutting
the whole pineapple.
It can be seen that the keepability of cut pineapple varies from six to nine days at a
fixed temperature of 4C. This is a result of biological variation in the initial quality of the
product. Biological variation within the same batch causes differences in initial quality of
cut pineapple, such that different packages of cut pineapple may have a different pattern of
quality decay at the same temperature. Each package of cut pineapple is provided with a
guaranteed best-before-date (BBD) at a storage temperature of maximum 4C, which is
equal to ‘the current date þ6 days’.
A large amount of the fresh pineapples reach the Netherlands by costly air transport.
This is motivated by the fact that so far alternative ways of transportation, e.g. by
sea, resulted in significant quality decay and product shrinkage, due to lengthy